EU determined to push forward with Pandemic Treaty negotiations despite setbacks

5 months ago 20

Despite an additional week of intensive talks, negotiators were unable to reach agreement on the text of a new Pandemic Accord ahead of the World Health Assembly convening in Geneva from 27 May to 1 June.

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that conducted the negotiations conceded that while there were multiple elements of agreement and convergence, there was still a divergence of views on some aspects of the text, in particular, those parts relating to that sharing of information on pathogens and the sharing of benefits.

INB was set up by WHO in December 2021 to negotiate a convention, agreement, or other international instrument to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response

Despite not reaching a final agreement, the progress on the Pandemic Treaty and revisions to the International Health Regulations (IHR) to date will be presented to the World Health Assembly in Geneva.

“While great progress was made during these negotiations, there are challenges still to overcome,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We need to use the World Health Assembly to re-energize us and finish the job at hand, which is to present the world with a generational pandemic agreement.”

INB Co-Chair Precious Matsoso, from South Africa, said: “The world must not take its focus off the job at hand, which is to ensure the world is better protected from the next pandemic.”

Replying to a question from Euractiv, European Commission spokesperson on health Stefan de Keersmaecker said a lot of progress has actually been achieved, despite the failure to reach an agreement.

“We had a very ambitious timeframe, a timeframe of two years for these negotiations. We made quite a lot of ground, we still need to negotiate further, taking into account the complexity of the issues that are being negotiated.”

De Keersmaecker pointed out that the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness framework took five years to negotiate and that the EU will work with partners to extend negotiations.

One of the ambitions of the new agreement was to secure more equitable access to therapeutics, vaccines, and diagnostics.

While not willing to “dive into the discussions” De Keersmaecker said the EU has listened to partners, experts, scientists and tried to provide tangible, substantive inputs that aimed to address the gaps that had been laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]